13 Interesting trends that will drive SEO in 2016

With the introduction of different content forms in this age, staying relevant is going to be on the priority list for search engines. Certain categories of content types – video content, for instance – will get prominence due to its higher engagement value.

As content drives change across Search, we can also expect increased preference for content with a higher word count. But this doesn’t mean pushing for long form of content with the intent of higher rankings and search volume.

The rise of rich and precise answers with the Knowledge Graph and with Local and Voice Searches is also about to make relevance very important.

Search engines are also expected to place importance on user behavior when it comes to search rankings. Brian Dean recently talked about his experience of how he ended up ranking for “How to get high” for his article on “How to get high Backlinks”. Sensing the disappointment of early leaving users when they landed up on a page about backlinks instead of an article about “getting high”, Google reduced the search rankings for this particular term. Of course, for “how to get high backlinks”, he ranks at the top. Talk about being relevant.

Amazing changes are going to be a part of 2016, since new technologies like Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and Digital assistants are going to change how we search for content.

Faster page loads will affect not only the users but also search engines. Even though higher rankings have traditionally brought a chunk of traffic, higher rankings alone can no longer be considered as sole traffic generators.

SEO in 2016 is going to evolve with content generation, algorithmic changes and technological innovations. Here are 13 of those trends which are going to matter more than anything else.

Do let us know if we’ve missed out on something or share your comments below.

SEO Trends in 2016

About the Author

Mohammad Farooq works as a Social Media Analyst with Simplilearn. When not doing anything related to Social media, he goes backpacking around India. He regularly blogs about Travel, Movies, Political Issues and a lot of other things on his blog “ReveringThoughts”.